Wild Pilgrim: You Become The Camino. You Become The Way

A wise old man on the road shared a few simple words in the last couple of days of my Camino de Santigao. He has walked the French Way 10 times.

He said “Samantha, it’s not you and the Camino.

You become the Camino.

You become the way.

Your way”.

He nailed my feelings to to a T!

You see the Camino takes from you on the first week. It takes your strength, your willpower, the skin from your feet and quite a few gritted tears. It takes your sleep, your privacy, your usual routine. It takes the emotional crap you have been holding in. Your worries and your fears. But you get through it into a strange kind of emptiness.

Then you hit the desert. La Meseta. Your emptiness is mirrored in the barren land with a never-ending deep blue sky. As you’re walking under the burning sun, the Camino starts to give back.

The spirit of the Camino comes rushing in, giving you your energy, your vitality, your belief in yourself and the world.

It reminds you of your forgotten dreams, your wishes and your desires.

A reminder that the world is truly a beautiful place, if you choose to believe.

It’s pure joy, my friends. A banana fuelled state of euphoria as I like to call it (I love bananas). It’s like walking on air. Absolute pure gold.

The spirit of the Camino is mirrored in every Pilgrim around you. We come from around the globe, from different cultures and we all behave like decent human beings capable of tolerance, kindness, generosity and acceptance.

A sense of we’re in this together.

Walking our own way and each other home.

My Camino has been by greatest adventure yet. It’s not just the walking; it’s a way of living that comes naturally, without being taught. Perhaps it’s a spirit inside each of us just waiting to be woken. I hope so.